Westministenders: Its time to fire the starting gun. At our own heads.

[RedToothBrush]

Its time for the suicide. The note will say simply, "The EU made us do it".

David Davies, says that despite May’s assertion that no deal is better than a bad deal for the UK, that actually we don’t know this as he hasn’t got round to quantifying the impact of no deal.

He still has no answers for anything apart from “I dunno” and “I’ll do it later”. I can’t wait for when the dog ate my homework excuse.

After 9 months. That’s how far we’ve got. Brexit negotiation skills will have 18 months (not 2 years as it’ll need to be ratified). We are still hiring people for the Brexit department. What about all these EU agencies that the UK will have to replicate and hire and train up in 2 years time?

I’m still waiting for Davies to tell me what all these potential benefits he keeps going on about are too. Benefits for who exactly? Ah yes we know the answer to this one too, even if its not being said. Its political elites and elites with lots of money who can consolidate power and enslave the population through debt and desperation. Goodie. Just what I’ve always wanted. As long as I can wave my Union Jack. Oh. Shit. Bugger.

Nicola Sturgeon, has been doing a good job of showing Brexiteers exactly what they look like to Remainers by holding up the mirror of irony to the Vampires of the 19th Century State. The sight of them tripping over themselves saying its irrational to hold a ‘blind vote’ and that the economic argument is flawed is hilarious. If you are not British.

Hammond has been forced to u-turn on NIC budget announcement as it was not in the spirit of the manifesto. What happened to the manifesto pledge to the protect interests in the Single Market. Lets be honest, the New Tory Manifesto read simply: “We’ll wing it and see what we can get away with”. I wonder how many people would vote for that.

Its Brexit at all costs. No matter what. We must keep the foreigners out. Even though Davis hasn’t done an assessment on the financial impact of migration. Just think about that for a second. Actually don’t because you might actually want to shoot yourself in the head.

At best the government are still relying on Game Theory as a basis for their negotiations and the EU are already going, “Er we don’t think so”.

Perhaps this is the intention of May’s tour to build consensus. She’s handing out guns and bullets to anyone who displays rational thought, to blow their own brains out.

May’s weakness is her manner and her chip on her shoulder for the law. Her own party are not immune to it. She seems to think trade deals are not done based on goodwill. May’s weakness is Britain’s folly.

Pass the blindfolds round, and get on your knees and await our own execution by our own hands.

Bang.

RIP The United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. I will remember you with nostalgic fondness but equally with bitterness and shame. Our finest hours are long since passed (and were tainted with the excesses of exploitation anyway) and we must accept this as part of the process of ‘accepting Brexit’.

Now its time for the empty hand to start being shown and the blame game to begin in earnest. The politics of hate have only just begun and the divorce has not started yet. Scotland, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar are the kids we might not get custody of.

We’ll be blacking up again, running around groping women like Benny Hill and pushing people back into the closet as we hit the off switch before you know it. As well as having nice shiny new ID cards we’ll have to pay for the privilege of owning and carrying at all times, to prove we aren’t nasty illegal immigrants or those equally nasty legal ones clogging up our NHS (by working for it).

Don’t worry though. Uncle Donny will save us. If he doesn’t die suddenly after eating a bowl of Russia soup or have a fatal heart attack after accidentally falling out of a tenth story window.

GreenPeppers

A PP linked to this article (www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n06/david-runciman/do-your-homework)

May didn’t do negotiation; in the words of Eric Pickles, one of her cabinet colleagues, she is not a ‘transactional’ politician. She takes a position and then she sticks to it, seeing it as a matter of principle that she delivers on what she has committed to. This doesn’t mean that she is a conviction politician. Often she arrives at a position reluctantly after much agonising – as home secretary she became notorious for being painfully slow to decide on matters over which she had personal authority. Many of the positions she adopts are ones she has inherited, seeing no option but to make good on other people’s promises. This has frequently brought her into conflict with the politicians from whom she inherited these commitments. By making fixed what her colleagues regarded as lines in the sand, she drove some of them mad.

May has decided this is what must be done (bringing down immigration) and will bring it about no matter what the cost/implications/results etc.

I genuinely don't get this obsession with including student numbers in the immigration figures.

It is counter-intuitive: it means that if our universities, with their great international reputations are successful in attracting foreign students (good ) you'd have thought ), then net immigration goes up (bad supposedly)

Although why any foreigners would want to come here ATM is another question

The argument runs that overseas students are likely to become stayers /overstayers. I think Mayhem (good name Peregrina suppressed a report that concluded it was not on as great a scale as she claimed, but well they are forren and coming here so it must be bad innit

Damn these reports and their facts like the student overstayers/staters aren't that high and health tourism isn't a massive problem. That goes against all the feelz

It is the opposite of what you want in a leader, what you want is a long term vision for the good of the country, and a strategy to get there, then having set the vision and strategy delegate the implementation plan to the people who will have the expertise at their disposal. I may have hated Thatcher but up until June the UK was living her vision for the economy more or less in tact. It was Reagans legacy too.

You don't get fixated on the measure for one small political tactic to keep your party in power and then drive the UK over a cliff in pursuit of it.

The Government has a Brexit Plan!

kommers.se/Documents/dokumentarkiv/publikationer/2017/Brexit-analysis-English-Summary.pdf

Its the Swedish government mind.

Its better than our non existent plan.

I think today broadly supports my thesis that they're not planning for the cliff-edge because they never intended to go over it.

OTOH, Davis is clueless beyond my worst fears (and he's theoretically the one our of the three brexiteers with the most clues). If Hammond goes, it dramatically increases the risk of the UK going over the cliff-edge by mistake.

My main concern has always been the cliff edge by mistake - that's the most likely scenario we end up in the sea. But, from May and Johnson's account it appears that their delusional beliefs about what's possible in a deal might find them unable to accept the reality of what they're offered. I don't trust a word Davis says & I still think that's possible given his equally meaningless platitudes about customs.

I understand that you believe that we will end up on an EEA/EFTA deal, I wish it were true, I just don't agree. Leave voters will say it's a Tory plot and they never meant to leave the EU. Backbenchers and hard right press will cry foul. So we'd be looking at a CETA style FTA deal (God knows how that would apply to services as CETA does not, but Davis was fairly clear about no passporting) and no CU.

If what Davis says is true he's admitting that they will be forced into accepting any deal the EU offers, however far it is from their expections/demands.

(Not that the EU intending to punish the UK with a bad deal, it's simply that the UK can't accept the terms that come with a good one.)

*If what Davis says is true he's admitting that they will be forced into accepting any deal the EU offers, however far it is from their expections/demands

Which, to be fair we always knew was true, he's simply admitted it.

Thanks v much for the link boodly.

Narrow, dogged and intransigent.

Its time for the suicide. The note will say simply, "The EU made us do it"

"I'd rather die on my feet, than live on my knees".

RIP The United Kingdom and Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, so its not 'the UK and NI', its just the UK. To people in Northern Ireland that is still an important detail.

The argument runs that overseas students are likely to become stayers /overstayers.

This is such a stupid reason. Think of the number of Heads of State and people in senior positions overseas who studied in the UK, at Oxford especially, and the goodwill engendered. Now think of them going to Australia say, instead.

When the dust finally settles on Brexit, in about 20 years time, the country will have well and truly put the Empire and visions of past glory to bed. Then we will probably be petitioning a reformed EU to let us in again.

Anon How in God's name is being a member of the EU equivalent to 'dying on your knees?'.

Its better than our non existent plan. It is. And if this was on the table, I'd feel so much more encouraged. I suspect Bojo and Davis were the types to pay for some one else to do their essays, maybe they could buy this one.

Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, so its not 'the UK and NI', its just the UK. To people in Northern Ireland that is still an important detail.
Everyone knows that, Anon.
We can still say RIP to NI if we want to highlight it might not exist as such anymore (it might join Ireland), and we can also say RIP to the UK which also won't exist.

Why does TM have such a bizarre and extreme obsession with keeping all the forriners out? Surely the number of people this (hating foreign students so much that we should consider destroying our universities to keep them away) plays positively with are actually vanishingly small?
I think the answer to that is that the press would splatter things on their front pages that would make it sound like May is a traitor. A hysterical reaction from the press to students not being included in the figures would allow them to sell more papers for a bit, which is all they want, and in the process the truth would be twisted so that even semi-reasonable people would fall out with May and look at UKIP. She knows that papers make the weather and she seems to think she'll think about the economy later. I guess if it all collapses all she'll need to do will be to follow the papers' way...

We can still say RIP to NI

Brexit isn't causing NI to leave the UK, just like in Scotland with the SNP, its just an excuse. As the Catholic population in NI increases faster than the protestant population, it is only a matter of time before a referendum to unite Ireland is held. Significantly the ROI does not want this to happen because it cannot financially afford to take responsibility for NI and probably wont for a long time.

being a member of the EU equivalent to 'dying on your knees
Because no matter how gold you paint the bars its still a prison, which we have just been given the door key to.

I just don't agree.

I'll just yell at you until you change your mind then ;)

Seriously, I think the difference comes down to what probability you ascribe to the different outcomes. I certainly wouldn't rule out a chaotic WTO brexit. However given the choice between a soft brexit with a long transitional period, and and being chucked off the cliff, my working assumption is that sanity will prevail.

I discount any likelihood of a free trade deal; not happening on this timescale. Maybe in 15 years time and with a more competent cabinet.

and and being chucked off the cliff, my working assumption is that sanity will prevail.

My working assumption is that May is so blinkered, with her eye firmly fixed on a few furriners, that she won't realise, as she strides towards the cliff edge, how near it is, and will be over it before she knows it. Of her three stooges - two will go with her, Johnson will manage to be somewhere other than the cliff edge when the time comes.

Doffs pedants hat
ahem it's the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It's not the UK without NI. It's just GB. Possibly United Kingdom of Great Britain. But then it wouldn't be that without Scotland. Possibly The United Kingdom of England and Wales. So not RIP UK but definitely RIP the existing union.

Especially as DD pretty much admitted WM are going to shit on the GFA yesterday. The Eu certainly didn't make them do that, that's their own choice.

Because no matter how gold you paint the bars its still a prison, which we have just been given the door key to.
Pretty much sums up how the scots and northern Irish are feeling.

Peregrina As Sadiq highlighted 1 in 7 world leaders studied in the UK. We lead / led the world in soft power.

I keep thinking of those banners outside a British Consulate in Asia, highlighting our sources of competitive advantage. One was for education and the other our service industries, banking, accounting and management consultancy and the creative / marketing services industries. All about to be shat on from a great height.

There seems to be some sort of assumption that the fact that the government "wants the best deal" means something. All these assertions that "anyone who says the government hasn't considered X" or "Y bad thing will happen hasn't read the White Paper" all the White Paper says is "we want the best!" Over and over.

That swedish govt plan in red's link should be sobering - if anyone in the govt is prepared to read a professional analysis rather than stick their collective heads in the sand:

"in the goods sector, there are no good alternative solutions:
it is simply impossible to be only partly in the customs territory"

"no matter which option will be the result of the withdrawal negotiations, it will mean a deterioration compared to that which applies today in trade between the EU and the UK."

Remember, Sweden is one of the E27 who regard the UK as a very important trade partner and are VERY eager to mitigate the effects of Brexit as much as possible.

No punishment beatings there. They want to help
They are looking for the least bad option.
There is no option as good, or better, than EU membership under current UK terms.

I agree that a free trade deal is unlikely for a number of years. Unfortunately, I think even if negotiations start soon on the FTA the unicorn cake eaters will simply not be able to accept that they are not being given unicorns and cake.

My pessimistic view is plummet off the cliff and gradually sort ourselves out in 10-15 years when people are more inclined to be reasonable. Or have a revolution with politicians strung up from lampposts.

Although I'm stuck here, the mortgage is paid off, we can grow vegetables and have no debt so I hope my family will weather the storm.

The idea that TM is a one focus person after making a decision with an inability to adapt makes a lot of sense. Also explains why there's no prep work being done. Naysayers are sidelined at best, looking into anything will show negatives, no one wants to be responsible for highlighting the negatives and anyway it doesn't matter because it is happening regardless.